[WikiEN-l] Fair use issues; we need serious help

[George Herbert]

On 7/26/07, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Matthew Brown wrote:
> > On 7/26/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The money could be better spent elsewhere. That type of battle is best
> >> left to the EFF.
> >>
> >
> > I'd personally say that that level of lawsuit paranoia needs to be
> > left elsewhere as well.  Their lawsuit wouldn't get far without a
> > takedown notice first.
> >
> > -Matt
> >
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> >
> Be that as it may, I'd oppose the use of most album-cover images even if
> we got a letter tomorrow from every music label saying "You've got
> permission to use any album cover you like on Wikipedia," removing any
> fear of a lawsuit. Same old problem with Wikipedia-only or noncommercial
> only content, same old reason we don't generally allow it. -It's not
> free-. On the other hand, if we started generally disallowing it, I'd
> imagine we could start getting GFDL releases for album covers,
> especially from more notable independent bands who might just love the
> idea of their album cover being used freely anywhere on Wikipedia it
> might fit, and be disconcerted by such an album cover not being used
> anywhere on the project. We're not meant to be "the encyclopedia with
> some free content", we're meant to be "the free encyclopedia".

Todd, fundamentally, here's the policy:

Fair use is free, too.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com